"The non-perishable side is done first," store manager Bill Falconer said Monday. "The perishable stuff you want to do at the last minute. We want to get the freshest product on the shelf."

Sprouts' new 29,000-square-foot store is located in the former Borders Bookstore space at 1101 S. Hover St., which has been empty since the bookstore closed in fall of 2011. Sprouts will be open daily from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. and the company's president and CEO, Doug Sanders, said its opening has been a long time coming.

"We've been working on getting to Longmont for several years," said Sanders, who is expected to be present for the opening. "We were working on Longmont and Sunflower was working on Longmont, and we both kind of coveted that Longmont space."

It was actually Boulder-based Sunflower Farmers Market that announced, in April, plans for a Longmont store. But that announcement was merely a formality. At the time Sunflower was in the process of merging with Phoenix-based Sprouts, and it was already known that after the two companies merged, all Sunflowers stores would become Sprouts. That merger was finalized in May.

The combined company gives Sprouts about 150 stores in eight states, about 11,000 employees and about $2 billion in revenue in 2012.

About 85 people work at the Longmont store which, like all Sprouts stores, has incorporated some of the touches from Sunflower and California-based Henry's Farmers Market, which merged with Sprouts in 2011.

"They've always had a great floral department," Sprouts spokeswoman Lindsay Windler said Monday as she gave a walk-through of the new store. "Boar's Head (meats) is something that we also adapted from Sunflower."

Sprouts has an in-house bakery and meat department, and a that prepares sandwiches and other dishes to go. A full fifth of the store is dedicated to fresh produce, Windler said.

Sanders, the CEO, said that's one of the things that sets his company apart from other grocery stores.

"We position ourselves as a value in natural and organic foods," he said. "Being a farmers market concept, we lead with fresh produce. We'll compete on price with anybody in town."

The store also offers a large vitamin and supplement section, and more than 300 items in bulk to choose from. The Longmont store will reflect another slight change that's going on company-wide, Windler said, and that's the addition of more non-perishable grocery items.

Longmont will be the 22nd Sprouts store in Colorado, with stores in Denver and Grand Junction also scheduled for opening in the first half of this year.